Why Isn't Everyone Catholic?

[Teflon93]

Where did the doctrine of the Trinity come from?

 

[SemperReformada]

The ECFs on 2 Thessalonians 2:15:

Basil the Great:

In answer to the objection that the doxology in the form “with the spirit” has no written authority, we maintain that if there is no other instance of that which is unwritten, then this must not be received. But if the greater number of our mysteries are admittedinto our constitution without written authority, then, in company with the many others, let us receive this one. For I hold it apostolic to abide also by the unwritten traditions. “I praise you,” it is said, “that you remember me in all things and keep the ordinances as I delivered them to you,” and “Hold fast the traditions by which you have been taught whether by word or by our epistle.” (On the Spirit 29.71)

Chrysostom:

Paul did not instruct Timothy in his duty through letters alone, but also through the spoken word. He shows this, both in many other passages, as where he says, “whether by word our our epistle,” and especially here. Let us not, therefore, suppose that Paul spoke anything imperfectly that was related to doctrine. For he delivered many things to Timothy without writing. He reminds him of this when he says, “Hold fast the form of sound words, which you have heard from me.” After the manner of artists, I have impressed on you the image of virtue, fixing in your soul a sort of rule, model, and outline of all things pleasing to God. Therefore, cling to these things, and whether you are meditating on any matter of faith or love, or of a sound mind, form your ideas from what I have taught you. It will not be necessary to consult others for examples, when all has been deposited within yourself. (Homilies on Second Timothy 3.1)

Can you explain how these quotes catalog what Paul was talking about under the general term “tradition”? Silly me, I expected something like…a church document stating that Paul taught the bodily assumption of Mary to the church in Thessolonia and that is what is meant by “tradition” in 2 Thess 2:15.

 

[SemperReformada]

Where did the doctrine of the Trinity come from?

Scripture.

James White has a great book on the Trinity over at his website that even Fr. Mitch Pacwa endorsed in one of their debates. James has some really good debates over at his site, you would probably profit a lot by listening to them.

You should check it out.

Now, before you ask me to develop the doctrine of the trinity for you (not gonna do that), you can search the ask the apologist forum and you will see that Fr. Serpa (?) apparently believes the trinity is found within the pages of scripture.

Maybe I am too rash and you aren’t one of those Catholics who thinks it’s impossible to develop a case for the Trinity based on scripture alone.

 

[Teflon93]

Can you explain how these quotes catalog what Paul was talking about under the general term “tradition”? Silly me, I expected something like…a church document stating that Paul taught the bodily assumption of Mary to the church in Thessolonia and that is what is meant by “tradition” in 2 Thess 2:15.

It’s too early to introduce Church documents which you won’t acknowledge.

Let’s start with those you must.

Or do you disown these two saints, Basil the Great and John Chrysostom?

 

[SemperReformada]

It’s too early to introduce Church documents which you won’t acknowledge.

Let’s start with those you must.

Or do you disown these two saints, Basil the Great and John Chrysostom?

Please show me in the quotes you provided where the two great fathers catologed the “traditions” Paul was speaking of.

 

[Teflon93]

Scripture.

James White has a great book on the Trinity over at his website that even Fr. Mitch Pacwa endorsed in one of their debates. James has some really good debates over at his site, you would probably profit a lot by listening to them.

You should check it out.

Now, before you ask me to develop the doctrine of the trinity for you (not gonna do that), you can search the ask the apologist forum and you will see that Fr. Serpa (?) apparently believes the trinity is found within the pages of scripture.

Maybe I am too rash and you aren’t one of those Catholics who thinks it’s impossible to develop a case for the Trinity based on scripture alone.

Or perhaps you conflate two separate concepts: something being Scriptural—that is, not contradicted by Scripture, with something found explicitly within Scripture.

But why not simply quote us the verse(s) right now which establish that, to quote the Creed, that the Son and Holy Spirit are one in being with the Father?

 

[SemperReformada]

It’s too early to introduce Church documents which you won’t acknowledge.

Let’s start with those you must.

Or do you disown these two saints, Basil the Great and John Chrysostom?

I think you don’t understand what I am asking for. I want you to show me that your church has defined what traditions Paul is talking about. Is it the immaculate conception, the treasurey of merit, the assumption…I want specifics.

 

[Teflon93]

Please show me in the quotes you provided where the two great fathers catologed the “traditions” Paul was speaking of.

I am in the process of educating you on this very topic.

 

[Teflon93]

I think you don’t understand what I am asking for. I want you to show me that your church has defined what traditions Paul is talking about. Is it the immaculate conception, the treasurey of merit, the assumption…I want specifics.

You are getting far more specific information and evidence from me than you have provided.

Now do try and follow the argument rather than changing the subject for fear of where it leads.

 

[SemperReformada]

Or perhaps you conflate two separate concepts: something being Scriptural—that is, not contradicted by Scripture, with something found explicitly within Scripture.

But why not simply quote us the verse(s) right now which establish that, to quote the Creed, that the Son and Holy Spirit are one in being with the Father?

Tell you what…I’ll make a deal with you.

Show me a church document that lists those traditions that Paul was talking about in 2Thess2:15 and I will do my best to comply w/ your request.

 

[SemperReformada]

You are getting far more specific information and evidence from me than you have provided.

Now do try and follow the argument rather than changing the subject for fear of where it leads.

I see catholic after catholic quoting 2Thess2:15 and most of them have no idea that they have no way of proving what Paul meant by tradition. I am assuming you are one of those.

 

[Teflon93]

Let SemperReformada’s education continue.

catholic.com/library/God_in_Three_Persons.asp

catholic.com/library/Trinity.asp

The Didache

“After the foregoing instructions, baptize in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, in living [running] water. . . . If you have neither, pour water three times on the head, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit” (Didache 7:1 [A.D. 70]).

Ignatius of Antioch

“[T]o the Church at Ephesus in Asia . . . chosen through true suffering by the will of the Father in Jesus Christ our God” (Letter to the Ephesians 1 [A.D. 110]).

“For our God, Jesus Christ, was conceived by Mary in accord with God’s plan: of the seed of David, it is true, but also of the Holy Spirit” (ibid., 18:2).

Justin Martyr

“We will prove that we worship him reasonably; for we have learned that he is the Son of the true God himself, that he holds a second place, and the Spirit of prophecy a third. For this they accuse us of madness, saying that we attribute to a crucified man a place second to the unchangeable and eternal God, the Creator of all things; but they are ignorant of the mystery which lies therein” (First Apology 13:5–6 [A.D. 151]).

Theophilus of Antioch

“It is the attribute of God, of the most high and almighty and of the living God, not only to be everywhere, but also to see and hear all; for he can in no way be contained in a place. . . . The three days before the luminaries were created are types of the Trinity: God, his Word, and his Wisdom” (To Autolycus 2:15 [A.D. 181]).

Irenaeus

“For the Church, although dispersed throughout the whole world even to the ends of the earth, has received from the apostles and from their disciples the faith in one God, the Father Almighty . . . and in one Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who became flesh for our salvation; and in the Holy Spirit” (Against Heresies 1:10:1 [A.D. 189]).

Tertullian

“We do indeed believe that there is only one God, but we believe that under this dispensation, or, as we say, oikonomia, there is also a Son of this one only God, his Word, who proceeded from him and through whom all things were made and without whom nothing was made. . . . We believe he was sent down by the Father, in accord with his own promise, the Holy Spirit, the Paraclete, the sanctifier of the faith of those who believe in the Father and the Son, and in the Holy Spirit. . . . This rule of faith has been present since the beginning of the gospel, before even the earlier heretics” (Against Praxeas 2 [A.D. 216]).

“And at the same time the mystery of the oikonomia is safeguarded, for the unity is distributed in a Trinity. Placed in order, the three are the Father, Son, and Spirit. They are three, however, not in condition, but in degree; not in being, but in form; not in power, but in kind; of one being, however, and one condition and one power, because he is one God of whom degrees and forms and kinds are taken into account in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit” (ibid.).

“Keep always in mind the rule of faith which I profess and by which I bear witness that the Father and the Son and the Spirit are inseparable from each other, and then you will understand what is meant by it. Observe now that I say the Father is other [distinct], the Son is other, and the Spirit is other. This statement is wrongly understood by every uneducated or perversely disposed individual, as if it meant diversity and implied by that diversity a separation of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit” (ibid., 9).

“Thus the connection of the Father in the Son, and of the Son in the Paraclete, produces three coherent persons, who are yet distinct one from another. These three are, one essence, not one person, as it is said, ‘I and my Father are one’ [John 10:30], in respect of unity of being not singularity of number” (ibid., 25).

Origen

“For we do not hold that which the heretics imagine: that some part of the being of God was converted into the Son, or that the Son was procreated by the Father from non-existent substances, that is, from a being outside himself, so that there was a time when he [the Son] did not exist” (The Fundamental Doctrines 4:4:1 [A.D. 225]).

“No, rejecting every suggestion of corporeality, we hold that the Word and the Wisdom was begotten out of the invisible and incorporeal God, without anything corporal being acted upon . . . the expression which we employ, however that there was never a time when he did not exist is to be taken with a certain allowance. For these very words ‘when’ and ‘never’ are terms of temporal significance, while whatever is said of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, is to be understood as transcending all time, all ages” (ibid.).

“For it is the Trinity alone which exceeds every sense in which not only temporal but even eternal may be understood. It is all other things, indeed, which are outside the Trinity, which are to be measured by time and ages” (ibid.).

Hippolytus

“The Word alone of this God is from God himself, wherefore also the Word is God, being the being of God. Now the world was made from nothing, wherefore it is not God” (Refutation of All Heresies 10:29 [A.D. 228]).

 

[Teflon93]

Novatian

“For Scripture as much announces Christ as also God, as it announces God himself as man. It has as much described Jesus Christ to be man, as moreover it has also described Christ the Lord to be God. Because it does not set forth him to be the Son of God only, but also the son of man; nor does it only say, the son of man, but it has also been accustomed to speak of him as the Son of God. So that being of both, he is both, lest if he should be one only, he could not be the other. For as nature itself has prescribed that he must be believed to be a man who is of man, so the same nature prescribes also that he must be believed to be God who is of God. . . . Let them, therefore, who read that Jesus Christ the son of man is man, read also that this same Jesus is called also God and the Son of God” (Treatise on the Trinity 11 [A.D. 235]).

Pope Dionysius

“Next, then, I may properly turn to those who divide and cut apart and destroy the most sacred proclamation of the Church of God, making of it [the Trinity], as it were, three powers, distinct substances, and three godheads. . . . [Some heretics] proclaim that there are in some way three gods, when they divide the sacred unity into three substances foreign to each other and completely separate” (Letter to Dionysius of Alexandria 1 [A.D. 262]).

“Therefore, the divine Trinity must be gathered up and brought together in one, a summit, as it were, I mean the omnipotent God of the universe. . . . It is blasphemy, then, and not a common one but the worst, to say that the Son is in any way a handiwork [creature]. . . . But if the Son came into being [was created], there was a time when these attributes did not exist; and, consequently, there was a time when God was without them, which is utterly absurd” (ibid., 1–2).

“Neither, then, may we divide into three godheads the wonderful and divine unity. . . . Rather, we must believe in God, the Father Almighty; and in Christ Jesus, his Son; and in the Holy Spirit; and that the Word is united to the God of the universe. ‘For,’ he says, ‘The Father and I are one,’ and ‘I am in the Father, and the Father in me’” (ibid., 3).

Gregory the Wonderworker

“There is one God. . . . There is a perfect Trinity, in glory and eternity and sovereignty, neither divided nor estranged. Wherefore there is nothing either created or in servitude in the Trinity; nor anything superinduced, as if at some former period it was non-existent, and at some later period it was introduced. And thus neither was the Son ever wanting to the Father, nor the Spirit to the Son; but without variation and without change, the same Trinity abides ever” (Declaration of Faith [A.D. 265]).

Sechnall of Ireland

“Hymns, with Revelation and the Psalms of God [Patrick] sings, and does expound the same for the edifying of God’s people. This law he holds in the Trinity of the sacred Name and teaches one being in three persons” (Hymn in Praise of St. Patrick 22 [A.D. 444]).
Patrick of Ireland

“I bind to myself today the strong power of an invocation of the Trinity—the faith of the Trinity in unity, the Creator of the universe” (The Breastplate of St. Patrick 1 [A.D. 447]).

“[T]here is no other God, nor has there been heretofore, nor will there be hereafter, except God the Father unbegotten, without beginning, from whom is all beginning, upholding all things, as we say, and his Son Jesus Christ, whom we likewise to confess to have always been with the Father—before the world’s beginning. . . . Jesus Christ is the Lord and God in whom we believe . . . and who has poured out on us abundantly the Holy Spirit . . . whom we confess and adore as one God in the Trinity of the sacred Name” (Confession of St. Patrick 4 [A.D. 452]).
Augustine

“All the Catholic interpreters of the divine books of the Old and New Testaments whom I have been able to read, who wrote before me about the Trinity, which is God, intended to teach in accord with the Scriptures that the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit are of one and the same substance constituting a divine unity with an inseparable equality; and therefore there are not three gods but one God, although the Father begot the Son, and therefore he who is the Son is not the Father; and the Holy Spirit is neither the Father nor the Son but only the Spirit of the Father and of the Son, himself, too, coequal to the Father and to the Son and belonging to the unity of the Trinity” (The Trinity 1:4:7 [A.D. 408]).

 

[Teflon93]

Fulgence of Ruspe

“See, in short you have it that the Father is one, the Son another, and the Holy Spirit another; in Person, each is other, but in nature they are not other. In this regard he says: ‘The Father and I, we are one’ (John 10:30). He teaches us that one refers to their nature, and we are to their Persons. In like manner it is said: ‘There are three who bear witness in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Spirit; and these three are one’ (1 John 5:7). Let Sabellius hear we are, let him hear three; and let him believe that there are three Persons. Let him not blaspheme in his sacrilegious heart by saying that the Father is the same in himself as the Son is the same in himself and as the Holy Sprit is the same in himself, as if in some way he could beget himself, or in some way proceed from himself. Even in created natures it is never able to be found that something is able to beget itself. Let also Arius hear one; and let him not say that the Son is of a different nature, if one cannot be said of that, the nature of which is different” (The Trinity 4:1–2 [c. A.D. 515]).

“But in the one true God and Trinity it is naturally true not only that God is one but also that he is a Trinity, for the reason that the true God himself is a Trinity of Persons and one in nature. Through this natural unity the whole Father is in the Son and in the Holy Spirit, and the whole Holy Spirit, too, is in the Father and in the Son. None of these is outside any of the others; because no one of them precedes any other of them in eternity or exceeds any other in greatness, or is superior to any other in power” (The Rule of Faith 4 c. A.D. 523).

 

[SemperReformada]

I am in the process of educating you on this very topic.

I love education…so far you aren’t doing a good job though. I hope you aren’t a teacher. Show me the church document where it defines what exactly is contained under tradition in 2Thess 2:15.

 

[Teflon93]

Tell you what…I’ll make a deal with you.

Show me a church document that lists those traditions that Paul was talking about in 2Thess2:15 and I will do my best to comply w/ your request.

In time…you need to be brought along a step at a time.

 

[Teflon93]

As the evidence presented above demonstrates, the doctrine of the Trinity developed within the early Church after Pentecost.

Note the dates of these quotes.

So where did the Early Church get the notion that Father, Son, and Holy Spirit were one in being?

 

[Teflon93]

I love education…so far you aren’t doing a good job though. I hope you aren’t a teacher. Show me the church document where it defines what exactly is contained under tradition in 2Thess 2:15.

My, how charitable we are!

I’ll have to show you the Church teaching on the theological virtues first, I’m afraid.

 

[SemperReformada]

My, how charitable we are!

I’ll have to show you the Church teaching on the theological virtues first, I’m afraid.

You are one to talk. Mr. Pott, meet Mr. Kettle

 

[Teflon93]

The doctrine of the Trinity was taught by the Apostles and present within the Early Church from the beginning, as is evident from the prayers and sacramental formulae in patristic writings.

Note that it is NOT explicit within Scripture, the New Testament dealing as it does with the very earliest times of the Church.

Indeed, I give you now a sizeable collection of Catholic dogma—brace yourself!

We believe in one God,
the Father, the Almighty,
maker of heaven and earth,
of all that is, seen and unseen.

We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ,
the only Son of God,
eternally begotten of the Father,
God from God, Light from Light,
true God from true God,
begotten, not made,
one in Being with the Father.
Through him all things were made.
For us men and for our salvation
he came down from heaven:

  by the power of the Holy Spirit
  he was born of the Virgin Mary,
  and became man.

For our sake he was crucified

     under Pontius Pilate;
  he suffered, died, and was buried.

On the third day he rose again
in fulfillment of the Scriptures;
he ascended into heaven
and is seated at the right hand of the Father.
He will come again in glory

     to judge the living and the dead,
  and his kingdom will have no end.

We believe in the Holy Spirit,

the Lord, the giver of life,
who proceeds from the Father and the Son.
With the Father and the Son

  he is worshiped and glorified.

He has spoken through the Prophets.
We believe in one holy catholic

  and apostolic Church.

We acknowledge one baptism

  for the forgiveness of sins.

We look for the resurrection of the dead,
and the life of the world to come. Amen.

There is much in the Creed which is explicit in Scripture, but much which is not. Both came from Tradition, Scripture being merely a subset of it.